Swearing fans delay match broadcast

The broadcast of Ross County’s Scottish Premier League clash with St Mirren was delayed by the BBC by over five hours on Saturday over fears of the levels of swearing from the supporters.Derek Adams was sent to the stands along with Danny Lennon after a heated confrontation.

The game at Global Energy Stadium was meant to be screened “as live” at 17:30 after full-time finished, but BBC Alba -- the broadcaster’s Scottish Gaelic language channel -- deferred the transmission until 22:55 due to concerns that the bad language picked up by the microphones would have breached the guidelines of British broadcasting regulator Ofcom.

A BBC Alba spokesperson confirmed the delay to the transmission allowed producers to edit out the bad language.

"In compliance with the rules set by Ofcom, where no programme that carries offensive language can be broadcast pre-watershed, BBC Alba had no choice but to defer broadcast of today's Ross County v St Mirren match until post-watershed due to bad language picked up from the crowds," she stated.

Margot McCuaig, managing director of mneTV (who produced the broadcast for BBC Alba), tweeted to apologise for the delay to the screening.